Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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Opiate of the Economists

The redoubtable Steve Sailer has rallied to the side of renowned immigration economist George Borjas, who, with this post concerning the effects of immigration upon the black community, summoned forth an incogent and spluttering reaction from Bryan Caplan. Caplan, as might be expected from a member-in-good-standing of The Guild, delivers himself of the opinion that Borjas is missing the point of trade specifically, which apparently entails the absolutely free flow of labour, and of economic analysis generally:

There isn't a decent economist alive who would oppose free trade in textiles by pointing out that it hurts American textile workers. But Borjas has made a career out of pointing out that unskilled immigration hurts unskilled natives. (The only surprising thing is how small an effect he finds). A major point of economic reasoning, as far as I'm concerned, is going beyond the obvious losers of trade to all of the less-obvious - but equally human - winners.

Sailer, for his part, having taken up the mantle of sanity in this little contretemps, responds thusly:

Well, Bryan, I guess his problem from your point of view that is that, when it comes to immigration, Dr. Borjas has worked very hard to know what the hell's he's talking about. But who needs painstaking empiricism when Ayn Rand has shown us the true way?

What's striking is the constant reminder of what a large proportion of economists are fervent ideologues who, armed with a selective handful of bumper sticker slogans (e.g., Comparative Advantage! but not externalities), want to preach morality to the unenlightened far more than they want to try to understand reality.

What is curious is the conjunction, within the Guild of professional economists, of an ostensible empiricism, inquiring and tentative, and an incurious and dogmatic form of ideological 'thought', which itself brooks no dissent. Now, it ought to go without saying - though I must declare it, for one can never be too cautious in an age of diminished comprehension - that there are many economists who evince no tendency to vacillate between the poles of rigorous science and dogmatic declamation. Nevertheless, the tendency is sufficiently common to merit comment, and to summon forth interpretive analysis.

Hence, if I might attempt to sound a Saileresque note myself, I would suggest that this tendency expresses the self-interest of economists, over and above the reductionistic tendency of the modern age to locate in self-interest, and self-interest conceived as the calculating aspect of human nature that strives to maximize the satisfaction of earthly desires and preferences (instrumental reason), the very logic of social organization. It is the modern anthropology of affects and desires, mediated in the world by acts of will, that gave rise to the modern doctrines of rights, and integral with those doctrines of rights have been certain assumptions about the centrality of economic processes to the exercise of rights. If anyone should doubt the validity of this statements, let him consult recent discussions on this very forum, which afford the reader a demonstration of the degree of contrariness required to argue that economic considerations ought in certain circumstances be subordinated to moral concerns about economics.

Economists such as Mr. Caplan have not only been steeped in a cultural milieu in which economic efficiency is regarded as a trump, but possess a professional interest in propagating this view selectively, in moments of national controversy. Economists such as Borjas, who examine the many externalities of immigration, are, in reality, arguing not only that immigration imposes quantifiable costs, but that, in effect, and contrary to the airy propagandizing of those like Caplan, all economic policies entail costs and benefits - that there is no "everybody wins" scenario arising from efficiency, free trade, free labour flows, and openness. If there is an expanding pie or a rising tide here, there is a zero-sum process over there. Get over it. That is what scarcity means. It is but a short step from this realization to the recognition of non-economic goods which not only do, but must, influence economic practices. Those like Caplan, however, will resist this line of inquiry and research; if economic matters are always central and decisive, then the high priests are always in demand. The Guild will be secure.

Comments (41)

Caplan Spake:There isn't a decent economist alive who would oppose free trade in textiles by pointing out that it hurts American textile workers.

I suppose if we believed the statement to be true he could have stopped at the word "alive". But I don't think "decent" means what he thinks it means.

Maximus writes:I would suggest that this tendency expresses the self-interest of economists

More generally, if everything is managed through value-neutral domain expertise rather than subordinated to universally accessible values (a.k.a. the natural law) then experts become the ruling class. But my psychiatrist tells me I'm not supposed to notice that: just keep paying the bills and move along now.

More generally, if everything is managed through value-neutral domain expertise rather than subordinated to universally accessible values (a.k.a. the natural law) then experts become the ruling class.

I'm not so certain that value-neutrality is a real quality of these discourses. It seems to me to be, at best, accidental to them in certain instances.

Do you really mean this as an absolute generalization? That sounds rather dogmatic to me.

What I mean is this: The dogma of the economists is essentially utilitarian in nature, aiming at the greatest good of the greatest number, where "good" is often defined in some reductionistic and question-begging way, but always having to do with material welfare. Economists are like many political philosophers, who make any number of eminently contestable assumptions that have to be teased out of their work. But the reality is that the greatest good of the greatest many means that there are losers; American textile workers, for example, just flat-out lose under globalization: zero-sum for them.

Generally speaking, therefore, I would say that there are no economic processes in which everyone benefits; sometimes, it will be the case that some will benefit, and others suffer loss, in respect of the same sort of goods; at other times, the loss will be in terms of some other good. But there is no process or policy which, on balance, will benefit everyone, such that everyone would be warranted in concluding that, all things considered, they were all better off than previously. This is an implication of utilitarian thought, in respect of both the "greater good principle" and the incommensurability of values. It is also, I think, an implication of scarcity and finitude. A utilitarian calculus lies at the heart of economics, and economists ought to have to the courage to admit it, rather than attempting to gloss it with myths about rising tides and bigger pies. However, this would require them to declare their values, as Mr. Caplan has more or less done for us, and such declarations only alienate when they are so forthright. Hence, the necessity of the usual myth-mongering.

I don't agree that what you've said follows from the abstract quality of "scarcity." And I don't see the argument that someone will _always_ be a loser. YOu may be right about American textile workers, but if so a) that is a loss in material and hence comparable terms, and b) that is one case and can at most provide a small sample towards a larger generalization. Are you saying it's a _necessary truth_ that _either_ there is a loss to one group materially when there is a gain to another materially _or_ that there is a serious loss to some group in some important immaterial respect even when we can find no material losers? Or are you saying that this disjunct follows necessarily from some absolutely basic premises that every sensible person would already accept? Either of those seems like _way_ too strong a statement to me.

And by the way, I think sometimes there are bigger pies and that everyone does sometimes benefit materially. The idea that there are sometimes bigger material pies is not a myth, whether it's true in this specific case or that. Even when there is a bigger material pie, that does leave open the possibility that some or all of the people involved are losing in some important immaterial respect, but I would say that that has to be argued on a case-by-case basis rather than being evident by the natural light without arguing the particulars. And of course, whether some given case of increasing material prosperity is zero-sum or a case of a bigger pie is also an empirical matter.

I don't agree that what you've said follows from the abstract quality of "scarcity."

"Scarcity" is merely the economists' jargon for finitude, a manifest implication of which is that among the various goods and perceived goods of this mortal life, there will always be conflicts of some sort or other, such that it is not possible for us to "have it all". In the case at hand, it means that between Russell Kirk's ideal of an agrarian order and the dynamic, industrial, auto-centric civilization that we have, there is a choice to be made. And between having an economy in which the efficiency of capital is increased and having one in which the aptitudes of the lower half of the bell curve - from which most textile workers will come, I think - are remunerated in a manner consistent with human dignity, there is often a choice.

Are you saying it's a _necessary truth_ that _either_ there is a loss to one group materially when there is a gain to another materially _or_ that there is a serious loss to some group in some important immaterial respect even when we can find no material losers? Or are you saying that this disjunct follows necessarily from some absolutely basic premises that every sensible person would already accept?

I consider it a necessary truth that, given the incommensurability of values, along with the impossibility of the simultaneous maximization of all goods, that there will always be an immaterial loss of some sort or other in these trade-offs. It seems to me that this is knowable via the natural light of reason, and is something acknowledged even by blinkered liberals like Isaiah Berlin and John Gray. Again, this follows from the fact of finitude, or fallenness, if you prefer, though I incline toward the former.

As for the empirical question of whether progress always entails that some group will take the zero-sum shaft, I would argue that if this is not a necessary truth, it is a generalization that admits of few exceptions. To believe the contrary, we would be required to assent to the notion that all forces of material progress are such that no groups, given their aptitudes, cultures, life-circumstances, and so on, will ever fail to adapt to progress so as to better themselves materially. To assent, that is, to the notion that every textile worker whose job is outsourced, every computer programmer whose job is insourced, will either succeed in retraining so as to acquire a better job, or benefit so significantly from those "lower prices" that even in his reduced circumstances, he is better off on balance. Or that, perhaps, their descendants will be better off, which is cold comfort for the dispossessed.

And this is rather too much to be believed. Some people, usually at the lower end, are left behind. So, yes, this is an empirical question, but that it will always be answered in the same way - no. There will always be immaterial costs to progress, and there will always be some material costs for certain people and groups, sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent. What follows is that while the pie may be bigger in the aggregate, the share accorded some group may be smaller, and that this condition may be more or less permanent given the structure of the economy as it stands: zero-sum for them. Those textile workers aren't going to be better off in the aggregate unless many of them can retrain for jobs for which many of them simply lack the cognitive abilities; and many American programmers won't ever be better off unless all of the H1-B's are sent back to their countries of origin.

The most general point arising from all of this is that purely technical, quantitative considerations cannot form the basis of political deliberation; questions of ethics and obligations are inherent, and ineliminable. Zero-sum transactions are escapable if and only if everyone always succeeds in adapting to progress. This seems dubious to me.

I'm not so certain that value-neutrality is a real quality of these discourses.

Oh, I think it definitely isn't. But from the perspective of the weltanschauung it is possible for procedures to be morally neutral, though in fact they aren't. There is no law which requires the zeitgeist to be sane.

Like Lydia I was a bit queasy with the term "zero sum game" as you used it. But I also took it to mean at least in part that putatively morally neutral "rising tide" economic theory isn't. (Morally neutral, that is). I don't think that any zero sum games - taking the term literally - exist in modern economics. Economies are based on currency, a fiction which performs two functions intended to make everything interchangeable with (qualitatively equal to) everything else to as great an extent possible: it provides liquidity, and it quantifies. But in reality the value of things are not qualitatively identical and quantitatively measurable over time in this way. It is just a "useful fiction" if you will, and we lose sight of that at our peril.

Currency is the concrete qualitative equalizer - that which neutralizes differences in the qualities of things - in modern democracies, in much the same way that voting is the concrete quantitative equalizer - that which neutralizes differences in the political influence of the wills of different people - in modern democracies. (That doesn't make either currency or voting evil per se, but it is important to be aware of the actual role they are playing as particular institutions in our present context).

I don't think that any zero sum games - taking the term literally - exist in modern economics.

In terms of the function of currency, no, there are no zero-sum games, according to modern economic theory. But in terms of persons, which is the only analysis that actually gets me out of bed in the morning, so to speak, there obviously are zero-sum games, because people aren't reducible to quantity or its functions. I am rebelling, that is, against the equivocation of the economists, by which they appeal to the doctrine concerning currency when they are really addressing the human aspect.

Well, no, it's not the case that the only two choices are that there is _always or nearly always_ some material loser or that there is _never_ some material loser. You (Maximos) start addressing the question of whether there is always or almost always a material loser and then say that "to believe the contrary" (that is, to deny that there is always or nearly always a material loser) is to assert that no groups are unable to adapt to progress so as to better themselves materially. Now that's just not true. One could, for example, assert that _most_ groups will adapt themselves to progress so as to better themselves materially. I actually tend to think that this is, in the main, true. That needn't apply to every single individual. Nor need it apply to every group for every instance of what anyone would call "material progress." But if we're for the moment talking about material well-being, then I cannot see that it is immoral to have an economic system that make the large majority of men materially better off because some small number of men may be materially worse off.

But here I suspect that the question of free-trade and the question of material progress are to some extent being rolled together. As you know, I'm rather a moderate and ambivalent free-trader. Not everyone who talks about making bigger pies needs to be dogmatic on the matter of free trade with other countries.

But here I suspect that the question of free-trade and the question of material progress are to some extent being rolled together.

This, of course, is not so much my doing as that of the apologists and propagandists for free trade; according to their rhetoric, the two are utterly inseparable, so much so that they entail one another.

One could, for example, assert that _most_ groups will adapt themselves to progress so as to better themselves materially. I actually tend to think that this is, in the main, true.

You (Maximos) start addressing the question of whether there is always or almost always a material loser and then say that "to believe the contrary" (that is, to deny that there is always or nearly always a material loser) is to assert that no groups are unable to adapt to progress so as to better themselves materially. Now that's just not true.

Well, if most groups do adapt to the conditions of 'progress', then I think it follows by definition that some do not. And if some do not, then it is always, or almost always, the case that progress brings it about that there are material losers. This is not necessarily immoral in itself; what is immoral is the fact that our society essentially applies no moral analysis to economic progress, viewing that greater good for the greater number as self-justifying. Why, for example, the efficiency of capital and opportunity for non-Americans ought to be preferred over American textile workers and American programmers is mystifying outside the confines of purely economic analysis. Our obligations to those groups ought to be greater than it is thought to be, inasmuch as they are nearer to us within the concentric circles of obligation that situate moral action.

In other words, I take it that economic progress should never be permitted to weaken the framework of ethical obligation; at a minimum, it ought at least to be neutral. At present, it is not.

"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul? A great deal of good indeed! Now he has the chance to create jobs and wealth for everyone!"

and

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven. A rich man--now there's a man who has it made in the shade! Props all around for creating jobs and wealth!"

If we can (somewhat artificially) separate movements or acts or perhaps confine ourselves to speaking of this or that technological invention, then it is possible that in some given case there would be _no_ losers--e.g. perhaps every individual was the better off materially or no worse off materially within his lifetime for the invention of the lightbulb. There might be some "material loser within his lifetime" for some inventions, major economic changes, etc., and not for others. This would be compatible with the statment that "most people and groups adapt well to economic progress and are material beneficiaries thereof." I'm not actually asserting that it is the case that there are inventions and changes for which there are no long-term material losers, though I wouldn't be all that surprised if this were true. I'm just saying that it doesn't follow logically from a "most" statement that there are always some long-term material losers for any _given_ economic change you happen to be discussing.

Oh, one other quick thought: Much after your own manner, Maximos, of showing up the other side of things: If we're to talk about material "losers," I suppose it would be just as fair for a person who was thinking of marketing some new technological invention to think about the "losers" who would not have the material benefits thereof--both in new jobs and in the use of it--if he chose _not_ to market it as for him to think of the "losers" who might have to shift to new jobs and be out of work either temporarily or permanently if he did market it. If one is allowed to use the term "loser" for one group I do not see why one should not use the same term for the other group if the inventor suppresses his invention. Which is just another way of saying that if you know the thing you are considering doing will be of great material benefit to mankind, this is a non-negligible consideration in favor of doing it.

If we can (somewhat artificially) separate movements or acts or perhaps confine ourselves to speaking of this or that technological invention, then it is possible that in some given case there would be _no_ losers--e.g. perhaps every individual was the better off materially or no worse off materially within his lifetime for the invention of the lightbulb.

I suspect that there would be substantial differences as between the consequences of discrete inventions and large-scale economic transformations, policy shifts, and so on. It is the latter, primarily, that I have in mind in posts like the present one. I could be mistaken, but it seems doubtful that many people became permanent losers as a result of the invention of light bulbs. On the other hand, the invention of the automobile unquestionably set in motion processes that would eventuate in the decline and disappearance of many small towns and communities, of entire ways of life. And while I am not advocating the abolition of the automobile, I do not think that our discourse would be harmed in the slightest by an acknowledgment that for all of the material progress embodied in the promise of mobility, certain non-economic goods were lost - permanently, barring some catastrophe - and that certain types of communities and the people who inhabit them were placed on the losing side of history by the automobile. Even if in this particular case we should conclude that on balance the automobile was "worth it", we ought not infer that material progress is always the trump in this fashion.

There might be some "material loser within his lifetime" for some inventions, major economic changes, etc., and not for others.

This is obviously true in the case of inventions; but on the contrary, it seems to be true by definition that major economic changes leave "lifetime losers" on the threshing floor of creative destruction. If a minor economic change involves only a slight percentage reduction in marginal tax rates, or the introduction of some small invention like the light bulb - a small invention with wide-ranging consequences, nonetheless - and the market consequences of such an introduction, then it is relatively easy to assume that there will be no lifetime losers. But major economic changes involving the growth and decay of entire economic sectors, the provision or withdrawal of some subsidy, or the imposition of confiscatory taxation - examples could be multiplied almost without limit - cannot but create winners and losers, and economic history will demonstrate this beyond dispute. It is for this reason that I find this:

I'm just saying that it doesn't follow logically from a "most" statement that there are always some long-term material losers for any _given_ economic change you happen to be discussing.

To be somewhat uninterestingly true. I'll concede that I have had in mind large-scale transformations of the sort that are currently controversial, and have been the occasion of societal upheavals in past generations; but on such an assumption, I think that my point about permanent losers stands. The processes of globalization are at least as momentous as those of industrialization, which themselves created permanent winners and losers. For small-scale alterations and tinkering, there may well be innumerable cases of positive-sum progress; but this is not terribly relevant to the questions that press upon the body politic.

Much after your own manner, Maximos, of showing up the other side of things: If we're to talk about material "losers," I suppose it would be just as fair for a person who was thinking of marketing some new technological invention to think about the "losers" who would not have the material benefits thereof--both in new jobs and in the use of it--if he chose _not_ to market it as for him to think of the "losers" who might have to shift to new jobs and be out of work either temporarily or permanently if he did market it.

It would certainly be fair, though not dispositive. I'm not even certain that fairness is a relevant criterion, though I haven't much invested in this uncertainty. These matters concern much more than "Who/Whom".

Which is just another way of saying that if you know the thing you are considering doing will be of great material benefit to mankind, this is a non-negligible consideration in favor of doing it.

Non-negligible, of course. Sufficient, not at all. Material progress lacks the self-justifying qualities of the practice of virtue and the pursuit of the good, whether personal or social; it is a manifestly subordinate component of the good, and not even a necessary one at that.

I expect that the guys making gas lamps lost in the invention of the light bulb. The balance of winners and losers is not numerically equal, and it isn't a zero-sum game in a quantitative sense; but there are always both winners and losers.

Maximos is quite right that economists are utilitarian. The greatest good for the greatest number, creative destruction, and all that. What is the greatest good? It's always a material measure. What gets destroyed in all that creativity? People's businesses, lives, that may have been handed down for many generations. Benthamites and Efficiency Engineers, the lot of them!

There is a fascinating, albeit lengthy treatise dealing with the emergence and development of utilitarian political and economic thought, entitled The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. I cannot provide a link to the Amazon page, for the book is not currently in print, and so the search results offer only the scantiest measure of information. It suffices to note - and noting this is salutary - that utilitarian thought has always constituted a form of radicalism; it was not in its heyday something that a traditionalist could affirm, and neither is it really such a thing today. Though I may allow myself to be carried away in discussions such as the present one, this salient point ought not be forgotten amidst the clamour of controversy.

Is anyone seriously going to suggest that the inventor of electric light should have engaged in deep soul-searching as to whether to deep-six the invention because this would put gas lamplighters out of work, force manufacturers of gas lamps to switch to manufacturing electric ones or go out of business, and _some_ people in the whole process _might_ not adapt well and _might_ end up having less money to live on in the end? I think that's just crazy. The gas lamplighter _might_ also be mugged or killed (or his daughter might be) on dark streets that would have been better-lit if you had promulgated the electric bulb!

Next thing I'm going to be told that Lister should have worried himself half sick about whether it was ethical to teach the germ theory because some Wise Herbal Women of the villages might have trouble adapting and might lose their livelihoods when people stopped buying worthless herbal poultices and bought antiseptic from someone else instead!

Look, actions and inactions have infinite numbers of consequences, good and bad. Again, things that are usually referred to as "progress"--or at least things that I would refer to thus--are so called because they bring _obvious_ benefits. Material benefits, to be sure, but let's stick to one topic at a time. After all, one of the things we're being told to worry about here is the material "losers"--people who lose their jobs or are unable *in material terms* to adapt well economically to some major change in culture. Yet the benefits in question almost always acrue to those people as well. The lamplighter will eventually have better light around him if electric light is invented. The Wise Woman will be able to be treated by some kindly soul with antiseptic if _she_ gets a wound, which may save her life from major sepsis. And so forth. And yes, however you may think little of it, this is true of lower prices as well. Considering the way prices for all goods that have to be transported are going through the roof right now thanks to gas prices (and some paleos are suggesting _raising_ gas taxes???), lower prices is no mean consideration if we're worried about the common man.

Lister et. al. would to my mind do better to worry about all the people who will be the "losers" if they hide the light of their genius under a bushel than about the people who will lose a job and might not be able to find another (while gaining other material benefits) if they do not.

To me it is those who put what is, to my mind, an inordinate emphasis on the indirect economic bad consequences--often temporary--for some often relatively small group of people who are overly worried about consequences. I, as a good anti-consequentialist, ask first of all if the action is intrinsically wrong, which it obviously *is not* for any of these things, including even outsourcing, whatever one's prudential worries about it might be. Then I ask myself if it is plausible that one could do it with beneficent intent, if it has obvious and wide-ranging beneficial consequences, which many of these things do have. At that point, it seems to me that it is almost perverse to say, "But while everybody is living in a cleaner world, a world with good plumbing and far less life-shortening, back-breaking labor, a world with better medicine and better food, _some_ people _might_ have lost their jobs and found it terribly hard to retrain and get new ones. Maybe we shouldn't have done all this stuff and should have continued living without the good plumbing, the cleaner water, the warmer houses, etc., for the sake of those people."

Utilitarianism? No, a utilitarian is someone who believes that _all_ ethical decisions can be reduced to such a calculus, including the decision as to whether, e.g., deliberately to kill an innocent person. When we are talking about people's economic well-being, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with talking about, well, people's _economic well-being_, which will inevitably involve considerations about what arrangements make the best economic circumstances for the greatest number of people. _Obviously_, to a social conservative, that is not the only consideration. But where I say that what I have in mind is not breast-beating worry about people "displaced" by material progress or about the ineffable loss to the world caused by the invention of the automobile (along with all the ineffable gains--and I mean that without sarcasm). What I mean instead is that even if pornography brings in bread and circuses, it should be illegal. I think we would do well to stick to clear right and wrong.

Can I just say, as someone who took part in the last discussion concerning economic matters and paleo thought, that the back and forth between Lydia and Maximos is some of the best and most intellectually challenging writing I have had the pleasure of reading over the past couple of months. Keep it up you two!

I have been following the Sailer/Caplan contretemps and I think immigration makes a much better example of the problems of economic thinking (or using material well-being as the only yardstick of value) for paleos than globalization/free-trade because the externalities associated with immigration are so obvious and don't necessarily have anything to do with economics (i.e. what it means to be a citizen, cultural considerations, stable family formation, etc.)

I am also fascinated with the example of the automobile because I have a good friend who runs his own website/blog (check it out: www.carfreeworld.com) and thinks that the car has dramatically impacted American life in many different negative ways. And my friend is a good Republican Catholic who I always thought of as a free-market kind of guy...the next thing I know he moves to Portland and becomes the "cars are evil" guy!

The idea that we do something because we _can_, not because we _should_, is rampant, and is one of the things that is wrong with the world. I think the inventors of anything should do some soul-searching, and others--not the scientists and technologists and efficiency managers and economists (materialists, all of them!) that run our society--should do some probing as well. The inventor of electric light is little different from the inventors of the atomic bomb.

Is anyone seriously going to suggest that the inventor of electric light should have engaged in deep soul-searching as to whether to deep-six the invention...

No.

This was, of course, the object of the distinction, rough to be sure, but sufficiently fine-grained for a blog debate, between small scale changes originating with inventions, and broad-scale transformations such as industrialization or globalization. Furthermore, between the inventor of electric lighting needn't have probed the depths of his soul and material progress is not its own warrant a great gulf is fixed. Acceptance of the latter does not entail denial of the former.

Next thing I'm going to be told that Lister should have worried himself half sick...

I smell burning straw. How we arrived at a discussion of rudimentary advances in medicine and hygiene from the starting point of immigration and globalization is somewhat mystifying. No advancements in medical practice have ever been as consequential at the structural level as industrialization, globalization, or mass immigration, and so have not heightened the tensions, so to speak. Perhaps the prophesied biotech future will prove comparably consequential, but in such a case, most of technologies will fail various moral tests before we even need to trouble ourselves over the possible consequences of progress per se.

Then I ask myself if it is plausible that one could do it with beneficent intent..

It is, of course, quite plausible for outsourcing to be undertaken with beneficent intent. It is also quite plausible that motivations will be ambiguous, morally speaking, and that the appropriate objects of economic action will not always be retained in mind. What this means is that this is not an issue to be decided on the micro level, the level of the individual actor; this is, given the scale of the actions and consequences, implicates questions of the common good, of public and deliberative processes characteristic of self-governing societies. The notion that the rationally self-interested actions of individual economic actors, when aggregated, will yield the common good, is a type of utiitarianism, albeit one that is often confined to economic matters. However, if one believes that there can be such a thing as the common good, and that in a sense that is more than the sum of private satisfactions and rights-claims - that a polity can possess qualities of justice and goodness - then one has prima facie reasons for questioning such economic utilitarianism.

lower prices is no mean consideration

No, they aren't. But it is not really rationally self-evident that they should possess the status they do in all of these discussions of globalization. The low-prices meme really only applies to man-as-consumer. But we must also produce, ie., have remunerative employment before we can consume. Hence, any economic analysis, or consideration of the common good, must be concerned with the nature and quality of the productive enterprises and activities open to those who are supposed to benefit from those low prices. A trope of neoliberal economic analysis holds that, well, yes, free trade will annihilate agriculture in third world countries, impoverishing millions, but this won't matter on account of the lower prices. Tell that to the millions of Mexicans and other Latin Americans who have flooded north since the passage of NAFTA. Low prices uber alles is just another terrible simplification; there are more tools in the shed.

Utilitarianism?

It has been well said that the dominant ethos of modern conservatism, arising from the fusionism of the early years of National Review, has involved an essentially libertarian view of economics as conjoined with a (loose) moral traditionalism. That libertarian economic philosophy is, more or less, that of the Austrian school, many of the guiding spirits of which, such as Ludwig von Mises, openly avow their economic utilitarianism; this limited utilitarianism often coexists - with what degrees of tension I leave it to others to investigate - with emphatically non-utilitarian affirmations in other spheres and disciplines. The appellation is warranted insofar as the dominant school of economic analysis not only equates the greatest good of the greatest number with increased efficiency simply, but denies that there exists a moral component (excepting rights-claims) to economic decision-making. To reiterate what I have argued previously, it is hardly obvious morally that my obligations to shareholders and to the system as a totality really outweigh in all circumstances my obligations to those I employ, and those they support, including their wider communities. Neither is it obvious on a moral analysis that prices are of greater importance than employment and compensation. In point of fact, the very fact that we are even compelled to approach the subject via the trope of low prices suffices to demonstrate that we are a long way from that supposedly virtuous ethic of hard work and deferred gratification: such an emphasis would obviously spotlight questions of the nature of work, which is not the point of the system as constituted. Right now, its Consume! Conform! as a cultural and economic ideal.

I think we would do well to stick to clear right and wrong.

I am. I believe that any economic system which structurally privileges efficiency and returns to investors, and considers the common run of men primarily insofar as they have been analytically reduced to consumers (presumably, production occurs spontaneously, or takes care of itself somehow) is immoral. These are questions of justice in the very constitution of society.

I think Gintas is providing flesh for my straw-man. He apparently has answered "yes" to the very statement to which you, Maximos, have answered "no" regarding the inventor of the light bulb. In fact, he likens him to the inventor of the atomic bomb.????????? (I'm gonna run out of question marks.)

I think the statement that our naturally moving to a discussion of low prices shows some sort of problem--that we've "reduced man to man-as-consumer"--is, well, just obviously false. People do have to buy things to live. That's not a reductive statement. Nor is it some sort of horrible thing that I buy my strawberries and grapes (which just today went up to stratospheric prices because of a rise in the price of gas) rather than growing them myself. I don't feel in the least "reduced" either by the fact that I buy fruit or by a discussion of how higher prices affect me through the cost of everything from fruit to shoes.

As for utilitarianism, the minute you say "limited" in front of it, I lose interest in it as a term of disapprobation. Fine an' dandy, call me a "limited utilitarian." I bet each and every one of us is a "limited utilitarian" in some area or areas or other. It ain't an insult anymore, then. Of course it's perfectly all right to consider material utilities and benefits for the greatest number in _some areas_ and for _some purposes_.

"These are questions of justice in the very constitution of society." Given what I'm now gathering you mean by that, I disagree. Sign me up with the von Mises economics (to a fairly great extent) combined with moral traditionalism. According to Ed Feser, that isn't really "fusionism," because it doesn't include ideological libertarianism with such dogmatic pronouncements as that there are no unchosen obligations, etc. You can call it "fusionism lite," if you like.

Nor do I admit that such an approach "reduces people to consumers," because I know that it's perfectly possible for a _person_ to disagree with the pronouncements you are making while not considering people to have no worth or meaning except as consumers.

We probably disagree on whether an economic system can "analytically reduce" people when the people who espouse the system need not believe in any such reduction. I suspect the next move will be to attribute ideas to a system that needn't, logically, be held by any of its proponents.

* Rising inequality in the United States is linked to rising immigration, falling union membership and rising international trade according to economists. But, these three trends are not independent of each other, and the rise in the immigrant population contributes to the other two trends.

* Since 1970, the country’s immigrant population has grown by about 26 million persons — a 272 percent increase. Over the same period, the spread between mean and median family incomes — an indicator of increasing income inequality — has grown by nearly four times the rate of increase during the prior period (1947—70) when the immigrant population was fairly stable.

* Since mass immigration was unleashed by the 1965 immigration law, increases in average inflation-adjusted family income have steadily shrunk and are approaching no growth, or — if the trend continues — negative growth.

* The Bush administration’s proposal to increase immigration and increase both skilled and unskilled temporary foreign workers would increase the labor supply and, thereby, accelerate the trend in rising income inequality and the erosion of the middle class.

Russell Kirk once said that he had more in common with culturally conservative socialists from Europe than with libertarian globalists from Wall Street. I can see where he is coming from.

It does not take a Ph.D. in economics to know that big business is using legal and illegal immigration to drive down American wages.

And it's not just low-paying jobs...

Almost all the computer programers, nurses and engineers I know are now making significantly less than they were 10 years ago largely because of all the H1Bs driving down wages. Bill Gates said the U.S. needs "global wages," meaning that they want to flood the U.S. with cheap labor to drive down wages.

It's sickening. This is not a matter of "left" or "right" per se. It is a matter whether the U.S. will remain a Western nation or become a third-world wasteland.

It just occurred to me to add that I'm meditating a post called something like "A libertarian argument for limited immigration and caution in free trade." :-) Perhaps Maximos will like it better. If I write it, I'll see if I can get Ed Feser--who has done some really interesting things on libertarianism and conservatism--to come and comment on it.

I am quite correct to equate inventors. Most--both atom bomb and light bulb inventors--are scientists and engineers just doing what they are paid to do, and trying to "make it work", whatever it is they're twiddling with. In our scientistic world, they're all "heroic".

Please allow a real conservative (aka paleoconservative) the pulpit for a few minutes.

Historically conservatives have opposed free trade, and they should. It's destroying our economy. But many in the GOP have been "neoconned" on this issue. Wrapped in ideology, they are all sworn participants in a free trade suicide pact.

Regardless, immigration is the greatest issue facing the West today. A third-world invasion is taking place, and we can either stand our ground, or watch the West crumble.

Many leftists / neocons want to peddle us a "proposition nation," where only ideas matter, which is complete ahistorical utopianism. Proposition nations are left-wing fantasies. The USSR fell, and European countries that are trying it are falling apart too.

As a conservative, I support a more traditionalist concept of a nation: one based in blood and soil, kith and kin, and genophilia (instinctive attachment to family and tribe). The Greeks and Romans, for example, were very ethnocentric people and predicated their governments upon tribal systems. This norm continued throughout most of European history.

This - the conservative concept of a nation - is the historical norm -- not this left-wing proposition nation that leftists and snake-oil-salesmen neocons are trying to sell us.

Thank you for your time, Brothers and Sisters.

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I think the statement that our naturally moving to a discussion of low prices shows some sort of problem--that we've "reduced man to man-as-consumer"--is, well, just obviously false. People do have to buy things to live. That's not a reductive statement.

We're talking past one another in this instance, referring to distinct phenomena that have no necessary relation to one another. You seem to be characterizing this notion of the reduction of man to the status of mere consumer as either an invidious judgment rendered against those who are not self sufficient after the fashion of farmers or an an imputation of personal worth tied to consumption, as though it were being urged upon us that "he who dies with the most toys, wins". However, I'm not declaiming against the basic divisions of labour, and neither am I making a statement concerning the attribution of personal worth on the basis of conspicuous consumption. As for the latter, this is largely the province of depraved marketing executives who contrive strategies for marketing to children, openly discussing the techniques for the subversion of parental supervision and control, and for the incorporation of the child into the nexus of consumer spending. As regards the former, well, it should go without saying that I'm not easily confused with Pol Pot.

On the contrary, what I am arguing is that our society is characterized by a structural bias towards consumption, as evidenced by business practices and the laws which incentivize and undergird them, the prevalence of the financial services sector (debt service, mainly), also supported by certain monetary policies and legislation governing this sector, and, of course, to specify those business practices further, the process of globalization itself, which is justified on the bases of higher returns to investors and lower prices for consumers. In other words, I am referring to a combination of concrete business practices, policy decisions, and legislative enactments that privilege the interests of investors, those adept in the manipulation and trading of abstract forms of property, and managers, which in turn are justified in part by the appeal to the low, low prices these policies ostensibly afford us. The economic system has been configured in such a way as to increase the returns to this group and to provide low prices in some sectors of the economy (not the most important ones, such as housing, but leave that to the side), and not to ensure a well diversified economy offering a broad array of employment opportunities to all segments of the population. Most generally, this is reflected in the presuppositions of these debates: the interests of investors and the managerial class are assumed as givens, the process of globalization is regarded as a matter of fate, and all of the discussion of the jobs Americans will perform occurs under the rubric of potentiality: training, retraining, lifetime learning, education, etc. The actual jobs are something of an afterthought.

Manufacturing is withering in America because it is more profitable for American companies to either establish facilities overseas, or to become glorified middleman functions agglomerating goods produced in a diversity of global locales. The actual jobs Americans will perform are regarded as of tertiary importance, if even this.

Corporate interests agitate and connive for the importation of lower-cost foreign labour at both the high and low ends of the wage scale, because this is more profitable and lowers those prices. That native born carpenters and programmers suffer indicates that the systemic logic does not concern the quality of the production side of the equation in America.

The prevalence of the financial services sector, and the mounting indebtedness of American society, both publicly and privately, bespeaks a present orientation once considered inimical to the viability of a capitalist economy; in fact, the amount of wealth tied up in financial services and exotic monetary instruments may well exceed that bound up in actual productive enterprises, leaving us with an economy increasingly defined by speculation, debt, and the offshoring of actual productive activities. All of this is what is intended by the statement that our society structurally privileges consumption over production; this has something to do with attributions of personal worth and suchlike only accidentally.

The bottom line is that when what were decent jobs are being outsourced, and the decent jobs that replaced them are being performed by insourced foreigners, and the totality is justified by appeals to stock valuations on the one hand, and low prices on the other, all increasingly sustained by veritable Himalayas of debt, it is reasonable to conclude that consumption is the foundation of the system. And that this is a matter of moral indifference, both in the objects of the specific actions that constitute the system, and in its consequences, seems a highly dubious proposition. "The reduction of man to man-as-consumer" means that the productive labours we will exchange for the currency we will use to consume are marginal systemic inputs. Afterthoughts.

If however, there are forms of libertarianism which would mitigate some of these excesses, I'm all ears. I was on board with that short-lived alliance of paleoconservatives and old-school libertarians back in the 90's.

I don't understand your statement. By and large, paleoconservatives are opposed to free trade, opposed to outsourcing, and oppose the importation of cheap labor. In short, they reject the neoliberal / neocon economic models and reject globalism. Chronicles Magazine, for example, has been extremely critical of free trade, outsourcing, and the importation of cheap third-world labor.

The worst thing ever to happen to the American worker is the marriage of big business and multiculturalism and the paleos are quite critical of this. (Neocons seem to worship it.)

Like Kirk, paleos are skeptical of economic reductionism. There are more important things than economics. Russell Kirk once said that he had more in common with culturally conservative socialists from Europe than with libertarian globalists from Wall Street. I can see where he is coming from.

As Buchanan once said: "As you may have heard in my last campaign, I am called by many names. 'Protectionist' is one of the nicer ones; but it is inexact. I am an economic nationalist. To me, the country comes before the economy; and the economy exists for the people. I believe in free markets, but I do not worship them. In the proper hierarchy of things, it is the market that must be harnessed to work for man - and not the other way around."

If your bafflement comes on account of my remarks about libertarianism at the end of my comment, allow me to clarify: I remember the much ballyhooed alliance of paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians which arose in the early 90's and flourished for some time thereafter. It was remarked upon the occasion of the initial exploratory meetings - perhaps by Thomas Fleming - that, as regards practical politics, the two factions "agreed on about 90% of the issues, and could leave the other 10% for a later date." Both sides concurred in positing the restoration of the Constitutional order as the object of practical political endeavour, and considered, at least for a time, that dealing with the (substantial) grounds of theoretical disagreement could be postponed. It seems to me that these optimistic effusions overstated the extent of the agreement between the factions, but if it could be agreed that the restoration of that Constitutional order is an imperative, and that adoption of paleo positions regarding immigration and trade would render such a restoration more likely (all but inarguably true), then any libertarian movement in this direction would be deserving of approbation.

I think libertarians ought to be able to see dangers in a global economy and in unchecked immigration.

I'll say this, too, though: I think paleos need to be willing to give up the idea that all such problems must be solved by forcing employers to stay in the U.S. and to pay union scale. I think anyone concerned about things like outsourcing, globalism, and cheap illegal immigrant labor should be able to see that unions are part of the problem. It's either Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell who has also argued that unions tend to be bad for those at the low end of the bell curve, though they are intended to help them. I would recommend combining any anti-globalization policy changes that involve penalizing outsourcing with what _I_ would call anti-globalization policy changes involving, for example, outlawing closed shop so that union membership is truly voluntary on a man-by-man, job-by-job basis. That's just for starters. We can get to abolishing the NLRB and allowing lock-outs later. Unions should be service-providing, voluntary, club-like associations which no one is compelled to join and no one is compelled to bargain with. Allowing greater flexibility to Americans in paying for labor and negotiating for labor wages with their fellow Americans would help to remove some important incentives for exactly the sorts of things paleos are concerned about. If they reject such measures they show that they are determined that any changes _must_ come at the expense of the employer, even if this approach means that manufacturing continues to flow overseas--at the expense of American workers. A doctrinaire "the employer must be forced to pay more come hell or high water" approach isn't doing anybody any good, here.

Paleos cannot reliquish something at least approximating the notion of American companies remaining in American and employing Americans as an ideal, not without abandoning fundamental presuppositions of their outlook. Paleoconservatives consider the ties of memory, tradition, custom, soil, heritage, and identity to be of greater weight, in terms of practical reasoning, than purely quantitative considerations, such as, "Can I get a better deal if I move overseas, or can American match the deal I'd receive if I manufactured in China and incorporated in some banana republic?" One of the non-negotiable aspects of paleo thought is that propinquity carries ethical obligations, obligations that diminish with distance; one simply does possess a greater obligation to actual Americans than one does to an hypothetically increased bottom line.

That said, I've admitted, if not here, then at least elsewhere, that unions in American have overplayed their hands. At the same time, it really must be grasped that the origins of the labour movement lie not so much in the perversity of the working classes and the vice of envy as in the vast disparities of wealth and power made possible by industrialism. Once capital and economic power achieve a certain degree of concentration, the process of establishing terms of compensation shifts away from the pole of "negotiation" and towards the pole of "dictation". To be sure, it is seldom a matter of dictation simply, but it was often enough in some American settings in the late Nineteenth century, and still is in many third world settings today. And no, I'm not talking about China, either.

This, of course, sketches yet another aspect of paleo thought, which is that concentration is deleterious to the common good not merely because it is often of dubious justice, but because it unbalances the system, so to speak, engendering reactions and countermoves, themselves often dubious and fraught with peril. In other words, we have trade-unionism and socialist movements not merely because men incline towards such things, and that perversely, though that is a part of it, but because previous periods of economic concentration had already distorted the social fabric.

Succinctly stated: if you don't like unions, you should also dislike big business.

As for the matter of American businesses possessing an aversion to American societal conditions, well, many of the details of tax policy encourage offshoring; these, presumably, could be altered, given the requisite will. But my primary point here is that unions were essentially reactionary in the sense that they formed in response to the excesses of early industrial capitalism; to solve one side of the equation will leave intact the circumstances which called them forth.

Speaking for myself, I think that closed shop is just wrong. It's a relatively direct attempt to force the worker to let someone else negotiate the terms of his employment for him and to pay dues to an organization even if he'd rather not have them do so and pay the dues for this service. And to get conscientious objector status requires permission *from the union* and is impossible if you have ever belonged to a union in your entire life (which might have happened when you were 15 and got a job at Meijer and had never thought about the matter at all). So if we're to talk about ethical matters that go beyond matters of incentives and indirect consequences, I'd put the stopping of closed shop unions as one having such a claim.

But what sorts of changes in the tax code do you have in mind? And what would you think of a plan to, on the one hand, change those aspects of the tax code while, on the other hand, closing up closed shops?

I had in mind fundamental tax reform that would reduce the percentage of the tax haul from levies on income while increasing that from consumption, including the selective imposition of tariffs. The present tax structure provides no incentive for a corporation that could offshore production to remain within the United States; in fact, it fairly encourages offshoring, as tax rates are often perceived, rightly or wrongly, as exhorbitant relative to those available elsewhere, but unavoidable for corporations wishing to enjoy the advantages of American law and markets, while the absence of tariffs enables corporations to force American workers into competition with low-wage locales. Corporations 'compensate' - although more is involved deliberatively than this word indicates - by offshoring.

Hence, my idea, roughly, would be to alter the tax system, reducing (ideally eliminating, but there is the problem of a Constitutional amendment) the taxation of income and implementing a regime of comsumption-based taxes, inclusive of adjustable tariffs that would render the prices of goods manufactured in low-wage foreign locales comparable with the prices of similar goods manufactured domestically. Additionally, I would like to see a tax rebate similar to those employed by some European nations to stimulate exports: the sales tax or VAT nominally due on the exported goods is remitted.

Part of the problem with an income tax is its inherent value-neutrality. I haven't really thought the matter through, but I'd be favorably disposed to shifting the tax burden to consumption, especially if it was done with a self-conscious eye toward making value judgements about consumption. There is some of that already of course, and part of the problem with it is that the value judgements are all screwed up. But it is still the right principle. It is impossible with an income tax to make value judgements between different kinds of consumption: all you can do is discriminate based on how much income people make.

And there are really a great many other ways in which we ought to be discriminating: discriminations which have little to do with economics per se, or at least which rest on value judgements to which economic matters are subordinate. The income tax isn't merely an economic disaster, though it is that. And it is obvious why liberals like it: it permits discrimination against the privileged while insulating the process from any substantive value judgements.

I'm not terribly happy with the idea of deliberately putting a tax system in place on the grounds that we want a system that is _not_ value neutral. Zippy mentions that the values are so often screwed up. Exactly. (Though he may very well not agree with my examples.) One of the things that annoys the heck out of me is gas taxes that seem to proceed on the assumption that there is something morally tainted about the use of cars. My own inclination would be to prefer a tax system that is less rather than more value-laden.

That said, our country was funded by tariffs in its earlier, smaller-government days, so for the sake of smaller government I'd be willing to consider slashing the income tax and replacing it with tariffs. One major problem I have with increased sales taxes, much less VATs, supposedly in conjunction with cuts to income tax, is that it is unlikely to work out that way. The sales taxes will rise all the time, income taxes won't get cut all that much, and people will just be giving lots more of their money to the government in the long run through multiple channels. Part of the problem here is that people who propose changes to the tax system rarely say, "And we have to have _massive_ slashes in government programs. I mean _massive_."

So I'm highly reluctant to add anything like a VAT while retaining the income tax _at all_. It would be possible constitutionally to abolish it by statute. The constitution does not require an income tax but rather, by amendment, permit it. Congress can always stop collecting it and cut programs big-time. But I sense "when hell freezes over" coming to my mind.

In any event, and to focus on tariffs: What about higher tariffs combined with union-busting changes in the law such as outlawing closed shops? Or here's another, novel idea: Give employers that can demonstrate that they employ all American citizens, *on American soil*, an easement of the minimum wage law.

Some of those ideas are appealing. I know that there are a great many things broken about current labor law.

So I'm highly reluctant to add anything like a VAT while retaining the income tax _at all_.

Oh, me too. In fact I think VAT's are despicable and ought to be off the table. A VAT isn't a consumption tax on any actual transaction, it is a tax on some imputed valuation at some stage in a manufacturing process. Not the same thing as a consumption (sales) tax on actual transactions at all.

We do disagree about whether taxes should be value-laden. Part of the reason may be that I don't think there is any such thing as a tax that isn't value-laden. Consumption (sales) taxes, unlike income and VAT taxes, are at least more transparent in their value-ladenness.

And one of the things that I think is wrong with the world is the shuffling of value-laden decisions under a procedural table, where they take place in the darkness anyway but in a way that doesn't just hide them but lies about their value-ladenness. There is no such thing as value-neutral procedures. Any and all sets of procedures have implications with respect to substantive values. The big cultural lie about this is one of the things that has to go.

I'd not be enthusiastic about a VAT, either, though I thought it worth noting that many of the European tariff and trade policy regimes do feature VATs and rebates of the VATs for exports.

I would also note that I'd oppose serious union-busting policies in America, even in exchange for substantive, consumption-oriented tax reform, inasmuch as the union question is really oblique to the question of tax regimes. Unions arose because the massive agglomerations of capital and power made possible by modern corporate law and practice unbalanced the relationship of employer and employees in many industries. Unless we are also willing to alter corporate law significantly and radically, and to engage in a great deal of big-business/trust busting, I cannot see the logic of busting the unions. Incidentally, busting unions has been tacit policy since the dawn of the Reagan administration; free trade has been one of the principal battering rams.

We still have closed shop, Maximos. And Michigan is suffering for it, and for business taxes, while blaming free trade. I use the term "union-busting" partially tongue in cheek. What I would rather call it is making unions truly voluntary intermediate associations. And the logic of that and other measures--such as permitting lock-outs rather than having the NRLB tell employers they _must_ bargain with the union rather than hiring new workers--is precisely that it is supposed to help address the sclerosis of the American labor system, the lack of flexibility, that is (I believe) one of the things driving manufacturing overseas. It acknowledges that you aren't just a *bad guy* as an employer if you prefer not to pay union scale. It allows employers and employees to work together to find mutually agreeable wages which may make employers more willing to keep their business on U.S. soil rather than requiring that they accept the "all or nothing" approach of many unions who would apparently rather see their members out of work while blaming the Big Bad Capitalists than play their hand more modestly.

In short, it is intended to address _exactly_ the sorts of things you are concerned about in terms of offshoring, but it attempts to address them from something other than the perspective of "the employer must pay more, must, must, must, we'll _make_ him," which is just another face of the "all or nothing" mindset. Basically, the idea seems to be that compromise needs to come only on one side--that of the employer's paying union scale--which is no compromise at all.

As for "unbalancing the relationship between employers and employees," here you run up against my strong notion of personal property. There is a natural asymmetry between the guy who owns the business and the people he employs. That's the way it ought to be. That's just another side of the fact that there is an asymmetry, an "unbalancing" if you will, between me as the homeowner and a guest. He doesn't have a right to be here, and he doesn't have a right to tell me how to run my house. Of course I can do wrong things on my property, but the prima facie case is that I get to make free choices and free agreements with, for example, contractors, just as they are free to tell me "no." I have no right to their labor; they have no right to my business. I consider something similar to be true with employees. This is probably a very basic disagreement between us.

I should state this is simply is a basic and profound disagreement between us. I have acknowledged on numerous occasions what is undeniable about the history of the labour movement in the United States, namely, that unions often overplayed their hands. Indeed, some unions continue to employ this approach to this very day.

Nevertheless, the notion that labour has overplayed its hand - and this is a commonplace, particularly among conservatives, many of whom, like you, believe that unions should be little more than workers morale clubs - is really vacant of meaning unless it can be conceded that there actually is a state of affairs corresponding to the description, "capital has overplayed its hand." I should state, once more, that this is so not merely as a matter of balance, but as a matter of justice: it is hardly evident by the light of reason that the rights of private property entail 'rights' to unlimited accumulation (and this is one of the salient features of modern doctrines of rights, indeed, the salient feature which distinguishes them from ancient and medieval doctrines), the feature of modern capitalism which made possible the metastatic growth of corporations and their power, and which called forth the labour movement as a reaction.

Again, it seems manifest to me that the claim of the labourer to a reasonable and sustaining wage is of greater import than the claim of the capitalist that he ought to be able to hold down wages, or exercise his economic leverage upon workers who, in reality, will not possess the liberty of action ascribed to them by economic dogma. I scarcely envision an "all or nothing" approach to labour law and adminstration; the NLRB often errs on one side or the other, sometimes by turning a blind eye to corporate attempts to retaliate against union organizers, sometimes by siding with even the most unreasonable demands of labour. I get this. However, if unions are weakened in precisely the manner you suggest, absent a comparable reduction in the power of corporations the resultant relationship justly will be stigmatized as, "You must, you will, because we will compel you, accept crappy(ier) wages." As I indicated earlier, though, the fundamental difference between us is that I reject the notion that the right of property entails the absence of limits upon its just accumulation, and upon the exercise of the power attendant thereupon.

Well, I don't think I'm advocating making unions nothing more than morale clubs. More like negotiation agents, but ones freely chosen by the employee. Of course the terms of the contract between the union and the employee could include, for the term of the agreement, that the employee would have no employment in that company when the union called a strike, that the employee would not negotiate with the employer on his own, as well as of course the payment of dues. These could be enforceable by usual methods of enforcing contracts, such as forfeiture of some sum of money if the employee broke the terms of the agreement. This would all be very much like the present situation with literary agents and authors or with real estate agents and home owners looking to sell. You agree that, for example, the agent will get a percentage of the profits even if someone approaches you directly to buy the house. You agree to this in the hope that the realtor will get you sufficiently better terms as to be worth it. But no one requires you to accept this particular realtor in order to sell in this entire neighborhood. And you can try to go "for sale by owner" if you want.

What closed shop really means is "You must have us for your negotiation agents whether you want to or not, because it's really for your own good. If you can't see that, you don't know your own best interests. Shut up and give us the dues or you can't work here."

I might add, perhaps in what will seem partial mitigation of what you must think my macho pro-business stance, that I think it's morally despicable for employers to try to punish employees who quit by preventing them from getting jobs elsewhere. I'm talking about refusing reference letters to good former employees or having some sort of "buddy-buddy" agreement with other employers in the same field that none of them will hire someone who has left the employment of one. If there were a good way to punish this without too much danger of wrongful interference (after all, some employees weren't good and didn't deserve references), I would. It amounts to a kind of fraud, indirectly, through treating good employees as bad ones and refusing to tell the truth about them. It truly involves an attempt to force employees to accept bad wages or bad conditions out of fear that they won't be able to get another job if they quit. If that fear is just a general "what if," I say that's too bad, that's life. But if it's because the employee knows this network among people in the field will result in his blacklisting, or knows that the employer will tell lies about him to punish him if he quits, it's morally completely wrong, wrong, wrong!

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